


Straight From the Bleachers

by dix



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Cheer camp, Crossdressing, Fluff, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, There will probably not actually be human sacrifice, Underage Drinking, Virgin Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dix/pseuds/dix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school cheer camp AU where Harry is the clumsy new kid and Louis doesn't find him adorable at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I know I haven't updated since last year, (which sounds really bad) but I do plan on continuing this story at some point. And by 'at some point', I mean when some one actually pressures me into writing another chapter. I mean it. Like hmu in the comments and tell me to write more or I'm just going to assume no one cares. Please.

Louis wakes up to the disgusting feeling of some disgusting human being's disgusting tongue in his ear. Zayn's name is written all over this. Ugh. 

He opens his eyes and shoots the owner of the offensive tongue a glare. Yes, his suspicions have been confirmed, Zayn is his molester, his molester is Zayn.

"If your tongue isn't out of my ear and back in your mouth like, ten seconds ago, I can promise you that I will slaughter your firstborn and feed its' intestines to your neighbor's dogs while you watch and do nothing," he snarls.

Zayn giggles, far too accustomed by now to Louis' extremely graphic (possibly bordering on disconcertingly homicidal) depictions of violence towards his future offspring to react to the other's statement. He then whacks Louis with a pillow, and dodges the returning slap to the balls that Louis attempts.

"C'mon Lou, we're supposed to be meeting the rest of the team at the school in ten minutes and you aren't even out of bed" he pokes at his sides. Louis wants to kill him. He says so.

"Lou-bear," he looks reproachful, "you know we have to be there, team needs you, _captain,_ " he winks.

"Yeah, well the rest of the team can go fuck themselves " he grumbles, begrudgingly rising from his bed. His dear, sweet, beloved, warm, loving bed ... Ugh why was this his life?

"Chop-chop, get your fat arse out of bed" God, Zayn is just asking for Louis to hit him now. "I'll be waiting downstairs, Lottie made breakfast" Zayn gloats from the doorway, ignoring Louis' eye roll and dropping another wink at him as he leaves the room. 

Screw Zayn and his disgusting alertness at 6 am. Screw Lottie for her stupid crush on his stupid best friend. Screw Zayn again for encouraging her. Clearly he is in a rather screw-y mood at the moment. Who cares if it's not a word?

He heads to the bathroom for a shower, striping as he walks across the hall. Of course he was clearly mistaken in believing this to be an easy feat, seeing as he somehow manages to trip over his sister's shoes and bang his elbow on a doorway all in the span of about four seconds.

"Mother fucking cunt, shit" he hisses, stumbling into the bathroom and turning on the shower. He should probably start watching his language. His mother doesn't like when he swears.

Then again, his mother's judgement is questionable at the best of times. Really, what was she thinking, letting her teenage son join the cheer team? He didn't know what he was getting himself into, not to mention that he could've got someone pregnant for crying out loud! (Okay, not really, but he liked to think there was at least a slight chance, you know, for the sake of his former self's ego) He remembers speaking to her about trying out, she had told him that she loved him no matter what and asked if he had something to tell her.

"What are you trying to say mum?"

"Nothing honey, just that whatever you like, I'm okay with. Girls, boys..."

"Wow, way to stereotype mum, not all male cheerleaders are gay."

"Of course Louis, that's not was I was insinuating. You know, this isn't the only thing that's led me to believe..."

"No mum, I like girls."

"Okay Louis, well if you ever want to talk about it I'll be here."

"Mom, please, god."

He also remembers the first time young, innocent (ha), little fourteen-year-old Louis saw the Santa Clarita U squad. At this point in his life, he had been a little girl-obsessed and a lot horny. Blame puberty. In his hormone-induced haze, he had thought to himself, and this is almost an exact word-for-word account, really, please don't judge: 

Whoa, the girls on that cheer team are pretty hot, and I bet if I was doing that stunt I would get to touch that girl's bum. And that was it.

Little Louis had apparently been a bit of a perv; so sue him, he was a fourteen-year-old boy, honestly what had people expected? (not that he condones that sort of behavior, but, you know) Besides, he was certainly over that stage now, he tried not to think about it, lest he die of second-hand embarrassment from the memory.)

And really, if movies had taught little Louis anything, all cheerleaders really did was sit around (and he was definitely an advocate of that), talk about the latest rumors (and so what if he liked to know what was going on in his peers' lives, didn't everyone? Why did gossip have to have such a negative connotation?), and have sleepovers with each other doing all kinds of k- okay, he was definitely joining his school's cheer team.

Of course, after he made the team, because, of course he did, he quickly came to learn that cheerleading was nothing like the movies. Which, truthfully, had been a bit of a disappointment.

The team practiced eight hours a week- which wasn't too bad until he considered that those were eight hours he could have spent sleeping, or better yet eating- and made more posters than he had ever seen in his life, in other words around twelve, to hang around the campus, promoting school spirit or some crap, according to coach Mary.

That wasn't to say he didn't like cheer. On the contrary, he usually quite enjoyed it. The girls on the team were, for the most part, lovely (though there was that girl sophomore year who had tried to choke him after their partner stunt had fallen one too many times, but suffice to say, she was no longer with them), and even though he no longer found any of his teammates very romantically appealing (by now they were all a bit too close for anything like that), he still enjoyed their company, during and outside of practice, they were almost like his sisters. Or as fourteen-year-old Louis would have thought: his hot sisters who he used to occasionally like to imagine n- oh god the thought made his current self shudder.

Little Louis had really only joined cheer for the girls, and, contrary to common misconception, (mainly by his mother, god she was annoying) not because he was gay. Which he definitely wasn't. No matter what his mother thought. And so what if he occasionally wanks, imagining licking cream cheese frosting off of Zac Effron's V-cut. He's sure every heterosexual male does from time to time (like, have they not seen the guy? He is just so completely bang-able ). Besides,cream cheese frosting is delicious and perfect for licking off of sculpted, tanned, defined, hot- okay so yeah, Zac is extremely attractive, but being able to recognize the appeal of another male's ( in his opinion undeniably sexual ) body does not make him gay. Or it hardly does. Whatever. The point was that he didn't find his teammates anywhere near sexy. He would most likely disgust his fourteen-year-old self, wasted opportunities and the like. Oh well, younger Louis was a dick anyway.

 

Louis finishes up in the shower, toweling off his hair, and throwing on the first clean pair of sweats he finds on his bedroom floor, and his favorite jumper, red ( bonus for school colors ) and at least three sizes too big. It gives him the most ridiculous sweater paws, but it's arguably the most comfortable thing he owns, so he's not complaining. He grabs his bags, already packed from last night, and jogs down the stairs, because of course he's already running fifteen minutes late, such is his life. 

Zayn is waiting for him downstairs with Lottie and Louis' mum, who is dropping them off, mainly because neither of them want to leave their cars at the school all summer, but also partially because she wants to see her babies off, not that she would admit it.

He doesn't have time to sit down and eat breakfast, not if they want to make the bus, that is, so he snatches a limp pancake from a plate lying on the table and follows Zayn out the door.

 

The rest of the team is already on the bus when they get there, and Louis greets a few of the girls as he takes his seat in the back of the bus next to Hannah.

She sits up for a moment, opening her eyes, and mumbles something that could have been: "Hey Lou, mornin'" or possibly something about porn, before slumping back down in the seat, half in Louis' lap. She is not a morning person. Neither is Louis for that matter. He leans his head on her and minutes later, the both of them are dead-to-the-world, as if they had never even been woken up in the first place.

 

The bus journey is a long one -close to six hours- and really with this long of a trip, they should have been allowed to use one of the nice charter buses, and not this old school bus that smells like a mixture of old dog food and public toilet. 

It's past noon when they finally arrive, and Louis is just happy to be able to get off of that god-forsaken bus, and into some fresh air. He has never appreciated the smell of grass and sunscreen-slathered teens more.

Coach Mary immediately leads the team to the assembly taking place on the edge of the practice field, a long, green expanse of short-cropped grass, with several wide, shrub-lined walkways running across, perpendicular to one wider central path, which ran straight through the center of the field and on to the camp's cafeteria and dormitories. The paved paths divided the lawn into smaller sections that would be used for individual team's stunting practices, supervised by camp instructors, of course, beginning later in the week. The field, in its entirety, appeared quite nice, and he had a feeling they would come to appreciate the shade provided by the copious amount of trees when they actually began to work in the summer heat.

 

Their team is late for the meeting, apparently Louis' tardiness is contagious. Then again, it could just be because they had to wait for him to show up that morning. Either way, Louis is indirectly, or possibly very directly, at fault here. They have to squeeze in where they can fit amongst the other teams to listen to the camp instructors talk about the itinerary for the next twelve weeks. He manages, mind you, after quite a bit of weaving and a fair amount of apologizing for an accidental elbow in the ribs or a smashed baby toe, to get a spot near the front where he can actually try to hear what the overly-excited brunette is telling them. 

Once he gets close, he realizes that his proximity to the speaker is rather irrelevant at the moment, seeing as she is not actually speaking to the crowd just yet, and is actually simply having a very animated conversation with another young-looking girl, her curls dancing around her head and swishing from side to side excitedly as she bounces up and down, moving her hands frantically as she tells the other girl what looks to be quite the story.

Louis glances around him, looking for any teams he might recognize from last year. A boy standing to his left is wearing a uniform that looks familiar, but he can't quite place it. The boy is taller than Louis, though, to be fair, that isn't saying much, and Louis thinks he has the softest looking curls he has ever seen. He wants to run his fingers through the boy's hair to test this theory, but he thinks it might be a little too early in their relationship for that, seeing as they haven't actually met yet and all that.

He taps the boy on the shoulder, and he turns around and smiles.

"Uhhh..." Louis stumbles over his words, the boy is way more attractive than he had anticipated, " Hi?"

The boys eyes widen a little and he looks surprised, Louis doesn't know why, so he smiles. The other boy's smile widens, and he has dimples. Dimples. It's absolutely disgusting.

"Hi," the boy says back, sounding a little breathless. Maybe he'd just been running, Louis doesn't know.

Louis stares at the boy for a little longer than is probably strictly necessary, but his face is strikingly beautiful, more so than any girl Louis thinks he's ever seen, or for that matter any girl he ever will see, the boy is just that pretty. He has the most unnaturally pink, full lips and Louis would like to feel those too he thinks. His eyes are all pretty and green and innocent and- staring straight at him. Right.

"Hi," Louis says again, and honestly, what happened to his basic conversation skills, it's all he can do not to reach out and stroke the boy's face. He doesn't. Because that would be creepy, wouldn't it? So so creepy, but that does nothing to quell the urge.

"Hi," the boy repeats, and, okay now this is starting to get repetitive.

Originally, he had meant to ask the boy where he was from and if his team had come here before, but he can hardly remember that now with this boy staring at him. Right. This boy. Boy. Louis should not be freaking out this much over a boy. A very pretty boy, but still. He doesn't even like boys like that, though if he did, this one would definitely- No. No, he's just a boy. Louis is a boy too. A straight boy. This is just ridiculous, nothing more than two boys having a casual conversation ( well right now it's not feeling so casual or conversational, but, details ). This should not be a big deal.

He pushes his thoughts aside and tries again, this time with quite a bit more success if he does say so himself.

"So," he begins, finally remembering his initial intentions "where are you from..." He leaves the sentence open-ended, hoping the boy will take the hint.

"Harry" the boy, no, Harry says. "Eastwood U, you know, the Jags?"

And, oh, that's why the silver and blue Harry was wearing looked so familiar, he was from The Other School.

See, where Louis was from, there were two universities, one on each end of the county. Louis' own school, VU, and the newer school, Harry's school, Eastwood. The Peacocks and the Jags, respectively, had been rivals since Eastwood University had first opened in 1954. The rivalry between the schools was still very much ongoing, and Louis isn't sure he's supposed to be fraternizing with the enemy like this. Which could be a bit of a problem but, Louis had always found the whole jealously thing between the two school rather puerile anyways, so who cared?

 

"You're Louis, right?" Harry asks, interrupting his thoughts, "I've seen you before, like at games and stuff..." he trails off, "I think you're really good," he says shyly, and is he seriously blushing right now?

"Thanks, it's always good to hear from the fans" he jokes, and smiles at Harry again. What? He's only trying to play nice, display good sportsmanship, set an example for other teams and all that. His coach should be proud of him.

He starts to say more, maybe ask when Harry joined the team, because he definitely would have noticed if Harry had been there last season, but he's interrupted by the excited brunette from earlier. They both turn to listen.

The girl introduces herself as Danielle and gives a brief speech outlining camp policies before handing off the mic to an older man, the camp director, Paul.

Paul talks for ages, Louis stops listening about thirty seconds in. 

He eyes Harry next to him, who seems to be paying rapt attention. Lame. He turns to scope out the rest of the crowd, spotting Zayn standing near the front almost on the opposite side from where Louis is stood. As if he'd sensed him staring, or he was just just as bored as Louis, and looking for entertainment, his eyes lock with Louis' and he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. Louis frowns at him, mouthing creep at him.

Who's your friend? Zayn mouths

What?

Zayn gestures at Harry. Who's he?

No one Louis replies, and he's glad Zayn is standing so far away because he would definitely take his flush the wrong way.

Zayn mouths something else that he doesn't quite catch, dramatically faking a swoon (can you say overdone? Add Zayn to the list of people who think he's interested in men, a short list really, but his best friend and his mum, come on, it's like they've never met him), and when Louis just looks confused, he makes an extremely rude hand gesture.

Louis is just about to give him the finger when he hears a snicker beside him. It appears Harry has been watching their back and forth, and Louis blushes again, hoping he hadn't noticed their conversation may or may not have been completely centered around him. 

"Who's that," Harry murmurs in Louis ear, leaning closer.

Louis fights off a shudder, " My friend, Zayn. I'm afraid he is terribly challenged, you know, mentally, I'm sorry you had to witness this, awfully embarrassing really, I'll try to prevent it in the future, he can be a bit crass, you know." He figures he might as well lay it on thick, Zayn is a dick.

Harry lets out a loud bark of a laugh, then clamps his hands over his mouth as the people around them turn to stare. 

"Sorry" he mutters, looking down embarrassedly.

Louis laughs delightedly "Don't apologize, that was great, probably the hardest I've made anyone laugh in a while."

Harry looks up, grinning "Well I guess not everyone can appreciate a sense of humor"

And where did this boy come from, because as far as he's been able to discern, Harry is utterly perfect.

"That's good to hear," Louis says simply, turning back to Paul and ignoring Zayn, who is still furiously gesturing towards him, and hiding a smile. So maybe he was flirting with Harry just then, but he can't help it if he's a flirt. Actually he's never really considered himself a flirt before now, but, who cares, people can change right?

All he knows is that right now, he just wants to get some food, seeing as he hasn't eaten since this morning, and his room assignment so he can make up for the sleep he'd lost, waking up at five am, which, thinking back, might not have been a problem if he hadn't stayed up until two o'clock the previous night for absolutely no reason. Oh well, people make mistakes, and he's barely 20, which should automatically make him entitled to make twice as many mistakes as a normal person. Not that he's abnormal, but you get the point.

 

Once the meeting adjourns he says a quick goodbye to Harry, and hurries to find his coach before it gets too crowded to see. He manages to make it over to where she's standing with about half of the team, reading out room assignments. 

" Perrie and Leigh, room 309," she calls.

"Louis and Zayn, room 214," It's not a surprise they've been paired up, being BFF's 4eva ofc, it was pretty much a given that they would share a room.

He slips his arm around Zayn's and tugs him towards the dorm building.

"Let's get a move on it roomie, we haven't got all day."

They make their way through the mess of cheerleaders milling around in the square between the cafeteria and the training gym, some sitting at tables, eating and others just standing around, chatting. They cross the quad to the dorm building where they can see hundreds of girls pouring in and out, dropping off their belongings before heading to lunch. They manage to squeeze into the elevator with a few girls sporting big, sparkly green and orange bows and ride up to the second floor; in retrospect, they probably could have just taken the stairs, but it's too late now, not to mention it would have been unnecessary exercise, every cheerleader‘s worst nightmare.

When they get to their room, Louis notices that their other two roommates have already claimed their beds. Zayn takes the top bunk above one of the claimed beds, and Louis takes one of the two singles on the other side of the room.

"Wanna go get lunch?" Zayn offers.

Louis debates skipping out in favor of getting some rest, but decides against it, he was never one for taking naps. That and his stomach was growling, and Zayn could definitely hear that.

They make the short walk back to the caf and shuffle through the line for the buffet. While they look for a table, Louis spots Harry across the room, and if he feels his stomach drop at the sight, then that's not anything he needs to share, especially not with Zayn, or anyone, really.

There is a blonde boy perched on Harry's lap, and Harry is feeding him pieces of his cookie while they both laugh with another brown-haired boy and two girls with different shades of dyed-red hair. He wonders for a moment if the blonde is Harry's boyfriend, then remembers that he doesn't care.

Even though he definitely doesn't care, he still hustles Zayn across the seating area to a remote table so Harry and his friends won't see them. He watches Harry and the boy the entire time they're there, and when the blonde smacks a kiss on Harry's cheek before he leaves with the two red-heads, he almost gasps a little. Almost, but he doesn't, because he doesn't care. If Zayn notices Louis acting strangely all through lunch, he doesn't mention it. 

Camp doesn't actually start until the next morning, so they have the rest of the day to get their things together and relax, though mostly the latter. Louis isn't really all that into the whole 'together' thing, but the sky has gotten incredibly cloudy over the last couple of hours and he doesn't want to be caught outside in the rain, so he agrees to go back to the room with Zayn to unpack.

It's already sprinkling when they make the run across camp, giggling and shoving at each other, because that‘s what men do. They just manage to make it inside before it starts to pour, and they can hear the shrieks and wails outside from their room. 

They finally get a glimpse of their mysterious roommates when the two of them come traipsing in twenty minutes later, both completely drenched, and Louis can't help but laugh at the state of them.

"This may come as a surprise to you, but you are both soaking wet"

The shorter of the two speaks, "Yeah, well if Harry here hadn't insisted we go dancing in the rain," the boy mimics, "we wouldn't look like this"

"Harry?" Louis asks, because apparently that is the only piece of information he learned from this story.

"Hi again" the second boy, who is, in fact, Harry says, looking up.

Harry looks good wet. Really good. Almost edible. Or not, because Louis does not think about eating other boys.

"Hello," he says, and, "You should take your clothes off"

Zayn turns to frown at his poor word choice.

He elaborates, "Because you're all wet, you too…" 

"I'm Liam."

"Louis."

"Zayn"

"Harry"

"I think we already got that, Harry," Liam points out.

"I know, but I was feeling left out."

Liam rolls his eyes at a pouting Harry, grabs a bag from the bottom bunk, and heads into the bathroom, presumably to change. 

Harry reaches for a pair of sweats from his bag, before proceeding to strip off completely naked right in front of them. Louis jaw drops and he quickly tries to avert his eyes, but not before-wow. And by wow he means it was admirable, not arousing, which it wasn't. At all. 

Harry finishes dressing before noticing Louis and Zayn's mildly surprised expressions.

"Sorry," he apologizes, and at least he has the grace to appear slightly embarrassed by their reactions, "My mum always says I'm shameless, I can change in the bathroom next time if you're uncomfortable..."

"No, no, it's fine, really. I don't mind, do you Zayn?" Louis hurries to reassure him. He can't have Harry feeling insecure around them, now can he?

Zayn gives Louis a strange look, "No, I'm fine with it, who you show your junk s'your business I s'pose"

Harry laughs at that, and by the time Liam comes back in, the three of them are joking and giggling like old friends. 

They all more or less finish unpacking (Zayn more, Louis less) and then Louis and Zayn head upstairs for a team meeting in their coach’s room that turns into what Louis likes to refer to as a multiple party dispute, but is really just twenty girls screaming at each other across a fairly small room. Who knew how angry girls could get about deciding which bow they should wear the next day. Besides, it’s a ridiculous argument, Louis thinks, the white with the sparkly red polka dots is clearly the best choice.

Afterwards, the four of them meet back at their room and head to dinner together, joined by Harry's blonde boy, (Louis has now learned his name is Niall). Dinner is interesting. Louis is still not sure about the nature of Harry and Niall‘s relationship. The way they‘re pressed close, with Niall eating off of both of their plates says one thing, while the way Niall smacks Harry‘s hand away whenever he tries to steal from his plate and calls him a little cunt slice and an ass-cake enthusiast (what even is that?) says another. By the end of the night Louis is very confused. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to update. I finished this chapter like, two days after I posted the first one, but then I put off the editing for a while. Also there was a problem with the first chapter where it showed the work as a one-shot, so sorry about that. I'm not sure how long this is going to be yet. Okay, so enjoy the chapter (I hope), thanks for reading.

Harry wakes to the haunting tones of Marimba. His alarm. He has come to associate the melody with the misery and pain that is waking up for school at six o'clock every morning. The very sound of it makes him cringe.

He fumbles to unlock his phone lying beside him, silencing the blaring alarm. The screen reads 6:15. It's much earlier than he wants or needs to get up, but the sky outside is already beginning to lighten and he knows he won't be able to fall back asleep. His life is now ruined. It's almost like being in prison, he thinks, except not at all. He has no idea why he would compare life to being in prison, he is still half-asleep and his brain is not yet fully-functioning. He just really hates waking up early. In fact, he's pretty sure everyone does, so he doesn't think he's special, just particularly unlucky.

He considers waking up Liam to suffer alongside him, but he looks really cute, the way he's sleeping, bundled up in a mess of different blankets, mouth open wide enough to shove in at least one sock (if he wants to commit homicide on his best friend, that is), and drooling down the side of his face. Thinking back, cute is probably the wrong word, more like hilarious and a little bit disgusting.

He giggles to himself as he takes several pictures on his phone. One day he will post these all over the Internet. He can't help but snort, probably more loudly than is ideal, at Liam's face and he hears someone shuffling behind him. Louis.

He stares at his sleeping form across the room. In a non-creepy way. Or as non-creepy as a person can be whilst watching their roommate sleeping in the early hours of the morning. Unlike Liam, Louis really does look cute while he sleeps. His face looks soft and lovely, and his lips are slightly parted, as he breathes softly. 

Harry is sure he doesn't look anywhere near this attractive or sweet while he's sleeping. He's been told that he snores quite loudly, and he has a feeling he probably resembles a dead turtle with its tongue hanging out and drool pouring out of its mouth, and wow, if this isn't the most repulsing mental image, god, he hopes he doesn't look _that_ bad.

It's probably too soon to mess with Louis while he's sleeping, seeing as they're hardly even acquaintances yet, so instead, he takes a shower and gets dressed in his clothes for practice later in the day. At least he doesn't have to wear his spankies under today's shorts, though unfortunately, that can't be said for all of them. He sort of dreads putting on the same skin-tight silvery spandex briefs that the girls wear (though he secretly is a little excited to wear them because they're surprisingly comfortable, as far as garments that constrict his downstairs go).

Breakfast doesn't start 'till eight, so he still has around an hour to kill. He looks at Liam again. Sleeping, oh well. Maybe he'll go walk around the building, see if he remembers where Niall's room is and check if _he's_ awake. He doubts it.

He sets off through the second floor hall, whistling to himself before he remembers the sleeping people and tries to stay quieter.

He feels a little nervous for the day ahead. He knows he's definitely not the best cheerleader, possibly (definitely) one of the worst on the team. He's fairly certain that the only reason he made the team at all was because he was one of the only new boy to try out that season. There had been another boy, Liam, who had also tried, but the girls needed more bases for coed stunting, so they had been forced to settle with him. _Great._

 

He really hadn't even wanted to try out. His older sister Jenna had been the one to convince him ( more like groveled until he couldn't take the guilt anymore ) to try out with her. It was her last year in university and all of her friends refused to try-out with her, smart girls. Harry had only acquiesced after four days, and the begging was way worse for him than Jenna's other friends. He had to endure it at home _and_ during school. The fact that he had held out that long deserved some admiration, really.

The worst part was, Jenna wasn't even here with him because she had changed her mind and joined volleyball at the last minute. All of _that_ and they weren't even both on the team. He might have just never showed up for practice, but for his mum.

"Sweetie, I want you to at least give it a try."

"But _Mum_ , I don't think that that's really necessary, Jenna's not even doing it, and I only tried out for her."

"But _Harry_ , you worked hard to make this team, you can't just throw away the opportunity. Just go for the first week and if you hate it, you can quit."

And that was that. After the first week, he decided, begrudgingly, that it really wasn't so bad. It was even fun, but he wouldn't tell his mum that, he wouldn't want her to start thinking she knew everything now.

The team had only had time to practice for two weeks before camp started, and in those four practices, Harry learned three important things about cheerleading.

One: It's called "tumbling" for a reason, as in, if you do it wrong, you will find yourself "tumbling" onto your neck.

Two: do not/ let the girls "stretch" you, more like tear your body apart, limb from limb, like two starving tigers ripping apart a bloody carcass (again with the unpleasant imagery, what is his problem today?). 

And three: show your big donuts, not your little cinnamon rolls (though he still isn't quite sure he fully understands this concept).

 

He's also still not sure he knows where he's going. He takes the elevator down a floor, and wanders along the hall. He passes several open doors, and, peering inside one, he can tell that this must be some sort conference hall. Most of the rooms are full of tables and chairs, some are empty and one is simply filled with piled boxes of Gatorade. Nothing too interesting, although upon further inspection, he does find several cases of chocolate flavored sports drink, which, in itself is more than a bit strange ( and a little appalling, but who knows, maybe it's good. Probably not ).

He hears some sounds coming from ahead, muffled grunts and some huffing, slightly concerning. Unsure as to whether he's actually allowed to be down here, and also just not feeling like being dragged into an awkward conversation with some stranger, he ducks into the closest open room, hiding behind the cracked door. The sounds are getting closer, and he hopes _please god_ whoever it is won't come into the room. It would be extremely difficult ( not to mention uncomfortable ) to explain just what he was doing, by himself, hiding behind a door in an empty room where he is probably not supposed to be.

He peeks out when he hears whoever was making all of the noise pass his hiding place. He is more than a little surprised to see Danielle, the excited girl from yesterday's assembly, attempting (mostly successfully and rather impressively) to drag another, slightly smaller girl down the hall. 

She has an arm looped around the slight, brunette girl's waist and the other grasping across the girl's chest as she half-pulls/half-carries the girl's slumped form down the hall.

"Christ Mel, who knew you were this heavy," Danielle grunts, giving a fierce tug. 

The other girl, Mel? groans and her head lolls to the side, her hair falling back to expose her purpled neck. He lets out a quiet gasp but they don't seem to hear.

Harry looks on as Danielle turns a corner. He's debating whether he should try to catch them and offer help, but he's fairly certain that that hadn't been something he was supposed to see, and he has a feeling that Danielle wouldn't really appreciate his help at the moment. He waits a few minutes, just to be certain they're both gone, then quickly walks back to the elevator, no longer feeling quite up to exploring.

***

The first activity of the morning for his team is motions practice. It goes about as well as expected. He keeps forgetting which breakfast pastry is supposed to be facing forward, no matter how many times the instructor and his teammates correct him.

"Hit a T, not a homie," the motions instructor, Cara calls to the team, 

Seconds later he seems to have completely forgotten these directions, as the side of his fist slams into the jugular of the girl standing next to him, Jade. She pants for a while, as he flaps his hands around her, not sure how to help.

"Just back up next time," Jade chokes. He can't stop apologizing.

 

Their next activity is learning a dance. They're working together with two of the other teams and Harry finds himself standing next to Louis, who turns out to be the least helpful person _ever_ , as Danielle leads them through the steps. 

He forgets what comes after the body roll, stands up and pops too early while everyone else is still on the drop. He can never remember which way to spin and ends up facing backwards while they slide to the ground and he eventually just gives up and stands there, completely lost while they all dance around him.

Louis, the little shit that he is, laughs at him the entire time, making snarky comments, the highlights being:

"You call that epilepsy a dance move!" medically inaccurate.

"My Grandfather can move his hips better than that and he's broken both of them" mildly offensive.

"Whoa, calm down there hump-y!" and _what the hell_ does that even mean? _Humpy?_

Finally, Harry's had enough of his mockery after a particularly rude comment regarding his resemblance to dog with an itchy arse.

"Excuse me Louis, but, seeing as, according to Shakira, hips don't lie, and assuming, of course, that they wouldn't like for me to do so either, I feel like I should let you know what yours have been trying to tell you for a while now. They're sick and tired of having to move your heavy arse around all day, might want to work on that. 

And he knows it's horrible, (not to mention probably not even anatomically correct) can tell it's offensive by the look on Louis' face, but he was so done taking his shit. Still, he feels guilty about it. He doesn't even really think Louis bum is too big, thinks it's perfectly lovely, actually, but he had to come up with _something_ , and seeing as he'd been spending a considerable amount of time staring at it, it was the first thing that came to mind.

Louis huffs, but stops with the barrage of insults, for a while at least.

 

After dance, they head to the indoor gym for tumbling practice. He can't help but feel a little accomplished when he manages not to sustain any major injuries during the fifty minute block. Bonus, the tumbling instructor is pretty fit and Harry takes an instant liking to him. Nick gives him some actually helpful tips on his tumbling (put your hands farther apart in your round-off, it'll give you more power, and, snap your legs together sooner and squeeze your abs when your feet come down). He also seems to like Harry in particular, so maybe he already has his favorite camp instructor.

They have lunch and then another hour and a half of break before the second session starts, so he and Liam meet Niall outside the mess hall. He's really not sure what the mascots do all day, he hasn't seen Niall since last night. Maybe he'll ask him some time. Though knowing Niall, he's probably not sure either.

They spot Louis and Zayn behind them while they're waiting in line outside the dining room and Liam enthusiastically waves them up. Since when did he become Mr. Friendly? Liam has always been Mr. Friendly.

"Thanks man," Zayn tells Liam, as he and Louis join them in line.

Louis glances up at Harry for half a second, then studiously avoids his gaze. Was he really that offended by the Shakira comment? 

The five of them, plus three girls from Zayn and Louis' team, Katie, a quirky looking blonde, nice enough, Hannah, who seems to be particularly good friends with Louis, and Liegh, who has big, wild hair and seems interesting.

Louis doesn't look at him the entire time. Harry knows because he spends half of lunch watching him talk to almost everyone but him. He's not sure if it's purely coincidental, or if Louis is purposely not speaking to him, but he doesn't want to just assume the worst, so he decides that unless further evidence suggests that Louis is upset with him, he and Louis are both perfectly fine with each other. 

He watches Louis beg Zayn to go swimming with him after lunch, but Zayn refuses to join him.

"I don't know how many times you need me to tell you that _I. Can't. Swim_."

Louis sticks out his lower lip, but Zayn doesn't budge, so, being the nice, lovely boy he is ( at least according to his mum ), Harry volunteers to go swimming with him. Louis looks conflicted for a moment, but his desire to have some pool time fun must win out, because he quickly accepts Harry's offer and that's that.

 

After a quick change in the room, (Harry would be lying if he said he wasn't the tiniest bit disappointed when Louis opted to use the bathroom instead of changing in the room, but he understands that not everyone is as comfortable with nudity as he is), the two of them walk back to the crowded pool. 

They set their things down on a lounge near the pool, and Harry sits down on the edge, dangling his legs into the water, he likes to adjust to the temperature and ease himself in. Louis slides down next to him and leans closer. Harry turns toward him curiously, only to be completely enveloped in Louis' arms, dragged over the lip and pulled into the pool.

He flails desperately as they both plunge in, wraps his arms and legs around Louis middle as they sink to the bottom. After a fair amount of struggling, Harry prides himself on being a very octopus-like boy, Louis manages to pry him off and they both come up, spluttering.

"What the hell, mate?" Louis does not sound impressed by his talent, "Could've drowned us both." He sputters

Harry protests, " _Hey_ ," he draws out the word, " _You_ dragged _me_ in."

"Well _you_ pulled us down," Louis says, splashing him.

"Wouldn’t have happened if _you_ hadn’t pulled me in in the first place," he splashes Louis back.

Louis splashes him again, harder. Harry splashes him back, bigger. _Splash_ , Harry's hit. _Splash_ , Louis' hit. Splash, and now they're just blindly shoving as much water as they can into each others' faces. Louis makes a lunge for him, shoves him underwater. Harry resurfaces, and drags Louis down, and suddenly they're both a mess of limbs and flying water, wrestling in the pool.

And amidst the tidal waves and battle cries a whistle sounds. 

"BOYS, NO HORSEPLAY!"

They both freeze, not so caught up they don't hear the lifeguard, who sounds much less than pleased.

Louis still has a hand wrapped around his neck, holding onto the back of his head, the other gripping his hip.

Harry has both hands resting on Louis' shoulders, about to shove him back under. Now that they've stopped, neither of them have moved from their previous positions, and they stay like that for a moment, breathing heavily in each other's faces, and Harry can feel, as well as see, Louis staring at him.

He realizes that this moment has probably lasted long enough to make the way he's still holding Louis seem a little weird, so he lets his arms slip from his shoulders. Louis follows, releasing his hip and removing his arm, still wrapped around Harry's neck.

"YOU TWO BOYS," the lifeguard barks, "OUT IF THE POOL!"

They're still looking at each other. Harry cracks first, bursting into laughter, Louis soon follows. The two climb out of the pool, and collect their things, still in hysterics as they leave the pool, though he's not really sure why getting kicked out of the pool is so funny.

"Guess we should go back up then," Louis says, any hints of tension from earlier erased from his voice.

"Guess so."

 

The two of them head back, shower, and redress for the afternoon session. They split up, Louis going off with Zayn, and Harry finding his team for stunting practice.

Liam, Harry and the team's two smallest flyers, Felicite and Jade, are sent off to work with a few of the other teams' coed stunting pairs. They work with two instructors, Eleanor, a small girl with long brown hair, that really should be tied up, before someone (namely her) gets hurt, and Cal, an older looking guy with lighter hair and a warm smile.

Coed stunts are, for Harry, probably the most difficult part of cheer, his flyer must hardly weigh over a hundred pounds, and he probably knows guys who could easily lift her with one arm. Unfortunately, for Felicite and himself, he is not one of those guys.

The other girls tell him he's lucky his flyer is so tight, supposedly that makes it easier, (he's still not sure what they mean by tight, but he has been assured that they are not referring to her downstairs bits, so there's that) but he feels the coed stunts are not _easy_ by any definition, tight flyer or not.

Liam and Jade help him get her to a prep level, but the press to an extended liberty goes terribly wrong. Forget about the liberty, she barely makes it to the top before she teeters to the right as he completely loses his grip on her shoe. The stunt tips over, and she falls sideways, straight towards the ground, only to be caught, very luckily, by Cal. And it's a good thing he was spotting, because there was a good chance Felicite could have broken a few parts, falling from almost seven feet in the air.

"We might just want to keep it at a half for today," Cal advises. It is very good advice. He will definitely follow this advice.

The stunt goes better like this, her weight easier to support at shoulder level. Liam and Jade are working on a stunt far more advanced than he thinks he could ever even hope to try, and if Felicite looks slightly envious of Jade's more experienced base, He tries not to notice.

Trampoline, inside again, is after stunting, and then it's dinner and after that, free workout, or, what he has already deemed _break time_.

It's more packed than usual in the dining room, and he and Liam manage to squeeze into a booth where Niall is already sitting with Louis, Zayn seeming to have disappeared, and one of the coaches from earlier, the flyer. She's sitting next to Louis, across from Niall, so he and Liam squeeze in next to him, and Harry finds his entire body pressed into to Niall's, almost in his lap. He swings a leg over one of Niall's so he feels a little less cramped.

He notices Louis looking at him as he does this, so he smiles at him openly. Louis quickly turns his head, and his cheeks look a bit red. Maybe he forgot to wear sunscreen. 

Zayn doesn't show until halfway through diner, holding a plate filled with pizza and egg-rolls in true buffet style. Eleanor leaves soon after, as it's rather cramped at their table, which is clearly not meant to seat six.

Louis gets up to leave soon after Eleanor, claiming to be in need of contact solution. Harry didn't even know he wore glasses. Liam offers to accompany him, leaving Harry with the only two people in the world who are still eating, over an hour into dinner.

Niall must get bored with their conversation, or possibly feel a sudden need to walk out an intense leg cramp. He slips out of his seat and gives Harry's face a parting stroke before making a hasty exit, without so much as a word to either of them.

Zayn twitches his eyebrows at Niall's receding figure before he finishes munching on his last egg-roll. 

"So you and Niall..." He says casually with absolutely no preamble.

"What? Me and Niall?" Harry asks, feeling (and probably sounding), to be honest, a little startled and very confused.

Zayn shrugs, " Yeah. Are you guys dating?"

"Me and Niall? _No_ ," stumbling over his words, he adds, "W-not that there's anything wrong with Niall, but we just-we're friends. Close friends."

"I see," Zayn says simply, and Harry can tell he wants to pry, but is refraining.

"I'm gay!" he blurts loudly, turning more than a few heads.

He claps both hands over his mouth. His stupid, big, _loud_ mouth. _Way to break the news. Just declare it to the whole world why don't you_?

Zayn looks across the table at him amusedly. 

"Okay," he says.

Okay? What does okay mean? _Whoa that's cool man? That’s super gross and I don't think we should hang out anymore? Awesome guy, me too_? Way to be the most obscure person ever.

"What do you mean _okay_?"

"Okay. I mean that's cool mate," option number one it is.

"Okay" Harry tells him.

"'Kay," Zayn repeats.

Well isn't this awkward.

"So do you-"

"Look if your trying to ask about me taking it up the-"

"No, no that's not what I-"

"Oh, yeah, okay, uh, sorry about-"

"It's fine, I guess I might assume-"

"That I did?"

"No. That I was... asking."

"Oh."

They both pause for a long moment.

"So then, do you?" Zayn finally breaks the silence.

Harry flushes a deep red color, "I dunno, I mean, I- don't... maybe?"

"I see," Zayn does not look like he sees at all.

"So, what about you?" Harry asks in an attempt to break the awkward tension.

"What about me? You mean do I b-"

" _No!_ No," Harry interrupts, "I mean do you have a... person."

"Um, no. I don't have a... person,"

"Cool, cool. Neither do I," he hesitates, "I mean- I'm not like, asking you out... No offense! I mean, you're, like, perfectly attractive, and you seem nice- I just wasn't... Well I mean, you seem like a Grade-A piece of man-meat and all, but I..." He trails off, unsure as to what he could possibly say that wouldn't make this worse.

Zayn stares at him, "A grade-A piece of man-meat, huh?"

"I..." Harry starts, "am _so_ sorry. For that awful-" he breaks off, dissolving into giggles. Zayn joins in.

" _Man-meat_ ," he gasps.

"What is _man meat_ ," he sounds like he's having trouble breathing now.

"It sounds like you're talking about a lil Johnny," Zayn is still laughing.

"Please god, never utter the phrase _little Johnny_ ever again," Harry begs him.

This only makes Zayn laugh harder. In fact he doesn't calm down for several more minutes, until one of the kitchen staff comes out just to tell him to:

"Please settle down, young man."

They leave the dining room after that, Zayn finished with dinner, and walk back into the room to find Niall, who, by the looks of it, has made himself quite comfortable in Harry's bed.

"Took the two of you long enough, I was about to start beating my man-meat just to kill the time."

 

Harry and Zayn share a look, "I told you," Zayn mutters, moving past him to climb up to his own bed.

 _God_ what is wrong with these people? Who _actually_ says that?

Harry joins Niall, stretching out next to him on the narrow bed and looking over his shoulder at the magazine Niall is leafing through.

"Tiger-beat, really Niall? Where did you even get this?"

"Drug store, it was either this or Golf- Monthly."

Harry makes a noncommittal sound, but doesn't complain. There are worse things than a magazine targeted towards teen girls. Like magazines targeted at middle-aged men. Though, come to think about it, if you're into naked women, which he _really_ isn't, you might disagree.

He flinches as a loud crash sounds through the room. Louis is standing in the doorway, holding what appears to be a large stuffed cow, with Liam flanking him on the left, looking inexplicably apprehensive.

"Don't do a thing he tells you," he murmurs darkly into Harry's ear as he passes him on his way to the bathroom.

"Are any of you lads planning on participating in open gym?" Louis asks, raising his voice to a level that is definitely not appropriate for indoors. 

He doesn't give them time to reply, because really, who is _actually_ interested in voluntary exercise? The first two sessions were enough.

"Good. Because we-" he dramatically pauses, "are going to do a thing,"

 _Great_. This should be great.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, that took a while.

"Don't look so excited boys, it's gonna be great," Louis tries to reassure three dubious expressions staring blankly at him. They should be thrilled he came up with something fun to do, how very dare they.

"Not really sure if that's a good idea mate," Niall is the first to speak out.

Louis gives him a dangerous look and Niall raises his hands in surrender, "Just sayin'."

"Louis." Zayn says flatly, "That is definitely one of your worst ideas _ever_ , which is saying something."

"I think _you're_ just too afraid to do it," he shoots back.

"No, Louis. I think _you_ just need to think about this. Why would it make any sense for us to do that?" Zayn reasons.

"Harry," Louis turns to him. Last resort. No pressure.

He moves closer, "Harry, you don't think this is a bad idea, do you?"

He moves even closer, "Will you do it with me?" he looks up at Harry pleadingly.

"Uhhh... I'm not...like-"

"Please," Harry had better say yes now, he just used the _please_ word.

"Okay... okay," hmm, Harry breaks easily, he'll keep that in mind.

"It's your funeral," Zayn tells him dismissively. He waves a hand at the two of them as they leave, not even glancing up from the magazine he and Niall are perusing.

 

"So, Harry," Louis throws an arm over his shoulders. It puts his arm at a bit of an uncomfortable angle, twinges his shoulder with Harry's height, but he keeps it there, "have I ever told you that you're my favorite person in the world?"

Harry snorts, "I'm sure."

"Whoa, whoa. I think I'm detecting some sarcasm there H, dial down the attitude," 

Harry rolls his eyes, "Alright, _Lewis_ , but only for you sweet cheeks ."

Louis feels his stomach flutter at the words, probably just dinner digesting (he knows it's not), and he hesitates just a bit too long before he is able to come up with a response, albeit, a rather lame one.

"Yeah."

Luckily for him, Harry doesn't seem to notice his little slip up, so he's fine. Really, he is. Accept why does Harry calling him "sweet cheeks " make his tummy go all flippy. His _mum_ has called him that for pete's sake, and besides, no one gives him butterflies. Only scary rides sometimes, and Harry is definitely not a ride. _Although he certainly could be_...

Great, now he's thinking about riding Harry. This is doing nothing for any security he might once have had in his sexuality. Still doesn't make him gay.

"-gonna have to tell me," Harry finishes, looking at him.

"What," he says, as intelligently as possible, while openly gaping (just a little, he's not desperate).

"I _said_ , I don't know where the coaches' lounge is, so you're gonna have to tell me," he frowns at Louis.

"Right you are, Harold, you wouldn't know, would you?" he teases.

Harry's frown deepens, " _Hey_ , what's that supposed to mean?"

"What it means, _Harold_ , is that you've never been here," Louis says, giving one of Harry's curls a tug.

Harry tips his head, nudging it into Louis hand for a moment, before quickly straightening his neck and shooting a sidelong glance at Louis. Louis raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn't comment. Harry's a weird kid.

"Come on, it's this way."

He leads Harry around the back of the dorm building. They pass the nurses station, and walk a hundred meters past that, the coaches lounge is looms ahead of them. Well, not so much looming as it is just sitting there, looking like a fairly average middle class home, but looming sounds so much more dramatic he thinks, so he'll go with that.

"Do you think anyone's in there," Harry asks, leaning close to murmur into his ear.

He feels goosebumps rising over his skin and shivers the tiniest bit. It must be getting chilly already.

"Reckon most of them are off at open gym still," he whispers, "sneak 'round the back, yeah?"

Harry nods once in confirmation. Louis grabs onto his hand, purely for guiding purposes, as they sprint around the side of the building and duck down in the shrubbery beneath one of the windows. The sky is rapidly darkening now, so he figures they'd better hurry.

" _See anyone?_ " Harry hisses, watching him as he peeks over the window ledge and into the house.

"No, I think we're good."

"What if the door's locked?"

"Shouldn't be, I don't know."

Harry looks at him in disbelief, "Great forethought, that."

Louis elbows him, "You know what they say, don't knock 'till you try it. Though in our case we won't be doing any knocking either way," he yanks Harry forward, "c'mon."

Luckily, for them at least, the door is not locked, and they walk right into a large living area, much nicer than the one available to the campers.

Harry whistles. Louis shushes him. It wouldn't do to get caught this far along now would it?

He motions for Harry to follow him as he crosses the lounge room, and enters the attached kitchen, heading straight for the refrigerator.

"Booze's in here."

He quickly roots through the bottles in the fridge, handing a few to Harry and taking some himself.

"Won't they notice we've taken some?" Harry questions.

"Nah, they've got enough liqueur stashed in here to last them a year at least. Aren't even supposed to have it really, if Paul found out about it he'd flip."

"How do you even know this stuff?" Harry looks at him speculatively.

"This is a camp for mainly underaged student athletes Harry. Why would they be allowed to have alcohol anywhere near this place?"

Harry merely shrugs.

"Besides, I heard a couple of the coaches talking about it at dinner."

Harry looks like he's about to make a retort of some kind, but he freezes up as they both hear the sound of a door in the front of the house being unlocked.

" _Shit_ " Louis hisses, grasping onto Harry again and tugging him into an adjoining room where they both dive underneath the coffee table in the corner.

" _Shit_ ," he repeats.

It's a tight fit under the coffee table. They're crammed together, both crouching, trying not to move to keep the bottles from clinking together. He can feel Harry's knee pressing uncomfortably into his hip bone, but he doesn't dare move.

He hears the door open.

"Dani, hurry _up_ , we still have to get back," a feminine voice sounds.

"Sor-ry, couldn't see what I was doing," another voice, lower but probably still female snaps.

Louis tenses as a light flicks on and he hears footsteps approaching their hiding place. He glances over at Harry. His eyes are squeezed shut, and his entire body looks tense. They're both completely frozen, and at this point, Louis doesn't dare to even breathe. 

When the sound of footsteps moves away, he finally exhales. There are the muffled sounds of someone digging through a basket or something of the like, then the first voice calls out again.

"Dani! I can't find them! Do you have anything?"

"Yeah love, hold on a minute," the second voice shouts back. 

They can hear the first girl moving away, most likely after the other. Louis shoulders Harry to catch his attention.

 _Let's go_ , he mouths.

Harry nods quickly and they make a quick cursory of the room, before stealing back into the first room, and ducking behind the sofa facing opposite the back of the house. They're both still clutching several bottles each, tucked to their chests. The door is definitely a problem. They can't make any noise now,and both of them have their arms filled.

" _Take these_ ," Louis tries to hand Harry two of the bottles he's holding in his left to get the door. 

Several of the bottles clack together, and the sound is magnified in the silent house. Louis can feel himself cringing. _Shiy_. Neither of them move for several moments.

He hears nothing, so Louis makes a quieting gesture toward Harry, and reaches for the door handle. 

" _What are you doing_?" Harry whispers in his ear. He turns to give Harry a look, now is not the time for incompetency and sees... not Harry.

"Fuck," he jolts back in surprise, crashing into Harry and making him drop a bottle of tequila on his foot.

" _Shit_ ,"

"Well?" the voice repeats, louder this time. 

Louis looks in the speaker's direction.

" _Danielle_?" he gawks, "Hello," he adds awkwardly.

"Stealing then, are you?" Danielle says.

"More like... borrowing?" he says hopefully.

Danielle snorts, "I'm sure. Go on,"

"What?"

"I said go,"

"What, like _leave_?" he says disbelievingly.

"I'm not sure how else to say it. Yes, go," she repeats.

"Okay," he says, "we, um... thanks?"

"You're welcome," she smiles, "and next time, don't get caught," she winks, ushering them out.

"Bye!" he hears her call when he's sure they're both out of sight.

"So," Harry says, beside him, "that happen often?"

Louis just scoffs.

 

When they reach the room, not much has changed.

Liam, Zayn, and Niall are all squished together in Harry's bed, Zayn still leafing through the magazine, and the other two staring at something on Niall's phone.

None of them look up when they enter, until Harry loudly (and quite unnecessarily) clears his throat.

"Hmm, hey," Niall mutters under his breath, not looking up.

"Well?" Zayn prompts finally, locking eyes with Louis, "Did you do it?"

Louis' not really sure why Zayn would ask, clearly they must be holding _something_ , but he won't let an opportunity like this pass him up, so he says grandly, "Of course we did Zayn. Never ever doubt me."

Zayn doesn't respond, but he does climb out of the heap to cross the room and snatch the vodka from Louis' hands.

He inspects it for a moment..

"Christ, when you said the coaches had a lot of booze, you were serious."

"I am always serious," Louis replies condescendingly, "Why would this be any different?"

Again, Zayn ignores him.

"You know what this means?" Niall abruptly sits up, "A party."

Now Zayn shrugs, "Fair enough."

***

Two nights and a room full of cheerleaders later, Louis finds himself spectacularly drunk and the slightest bit lost. Someone is playing some pulsing club remix of an old song out of a giant speaker someone's dragged in. There must be around forty of them, crammed into the room, grinding, and just generally moving about, and someone must have brought more booze. The room is sweltering with all the sweaty, pressed-close bodies.

He's dancing with at least three girls now, two in front and one he can feel behind him, all rubbing against him.

He turns around and sees the girl grinding on him from behind is not actually a girl, but rather a mussed looking Zayn.

Un-caring, he turns to slide his arms around Zayn's neck, then continues dancing. He grinds his hips into Zayn's and they move together with the music for a minute before Zayn pulls him in to ask him a question.

"Have you seen Harry?" Zayn has to shout into his ear.

"No, why?"

"Haven't seen him for a couple of hours, wondered where he went."

Louis nods, chin bumping into Zayn's shoulder.

"SPIN THE BOTTLE!!" a voice rises above the sound of the music, really quite a feat.

Spin the bottle appears to be happening in the space between Louis and Harry's beds on top of their shared night table, which has been pulled away from the wall a good few feet.

"Wanna play?" Zayn yells.

"Okay, just let me go do something first." Louis gestures to the door.

Louis enters their shared bathroom to find two girls, kissing hungrily, and behind them, sat on the counter with his knees tucked up to his chest, and a mortified expression on his face, is Harry.

"Alright, _alright_ ," Louis quickly ushers the girls out of the room and closes the door.

"Well fancy seeing you. Come here often?" a pick up line he probably would have never used sober.

Harry guffaws, "What are you doing here?"

Louis doesn't answer, he has something important to say, "Harry," he squeals, "Harry," this time more serious, "I have to tell you something," he comes to stand between Harry's legs, leaning in to whisper, "I want... to touch you. Can I?"

"Okay," Harry is nodding.

Louis reaches out to slide his fingertips along Harry's jaw, "So soft," he murmurs reverently.

He uses his other hand and slowly rubs his thumb into Harry's cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. He reaches one finger down to stroke at Harry's bottom lip. Unable to help himself, he leans close and runs his tongue along the path he traced with his finger, slides it back and forth, back and forth, until he can feel Harry's lips parting beneath him. He pushes past Harry's lips then, to run his tongue along the bottoms of Harry's teeth, a slow, searching drag. They're not really kissing, but he can feel his lips brushing with Harry's with every other stroke.

No part of his mind is even considering that this might not be normal, might even be a little disgusting even. But he can feel Harry's mouth now, hot and so close to his, and he's not really thinking anything at the moment.

Harry is unmoving under his touch, seemingly almost as intoxicated as he is. But then he feels a hand reach around him to grope at his bum, kneading, and squeezing, and doing all the right things really, and it's fine, isn't it?

Louis groans appreciatively, and slides his own hands around to slip up the back of Harry's shirt. Harry closes his lips, then, around his tongue and sucks it into his mouth.

Louis groans again, pressing his entire body into Harry's. Harry wraps his legs around his waist, rolls his hips against him, and moans around Louis' tongue.

Louis moves their mouths together, sliding his tongue in and out of Harry's mouth slickly, tilting his head back. Harry bears down on him rolling his hips again, hardening against him, and Louis presses back, running clawed hands down his back.

He breaks their kiss to attach his mouth to Harry's neck, biting down gently, before sucking a bruise into the skin below his ear.

Harry arches his back and grinds into Louis again, reaching up to tug at his hair.

And then suddenly it's over, and someone is pulling both him and Harry out the bathroom door and into the party. He looks around to find the owner of the grabby hands that had forced him out, but he doesn't recognize any of the faces near him.

"LOUIS," someone calls, "COME PLAY," Niall is screaming from where he's sitting, only a few feet away, on Louis bed.

He grabs Harry, who's still standing next to him, looking befuddled at the sudden change in scenery.

They plop down next to Niall on Louis' bed as Niall takes his turn. He leans over to give a girl sitting across from them on Harry's bed a quick peck on the cheek.

"Really Niall, on the cheek, I always knew you were a daring one," Louis scoffs.

"Thought I'd start out slow, you know, not go straight in for a full on snog," Niall says with a grin, "But by all means, when you take your turn, go for it."

"I just might," Louis says, reaching out to take his spin. He laughs when he sees who it's pointing to.

"Guess it's your lucky day then," he tells Niall, "Still want me to 'go for it'?"

"Bring it on Tommo," he says, closing the gap between them and slamming his lips into Louis', probably with more force than is strictly necessary. The kiss is sloppy, though not exactly bad. They're both pretty uncoordinated througout, which doesn't help things along. Their mouths move together hotly, slick and noisy and he can feel Harry cringing next to him. He doesn't blame him, it is most likely a rather sickening display of drunkenness and lacking judgement, though he doubts he'll remember enough in the morning to regret it.

He pulls away and there's a glistening strand of saliva stretching between their mouths. It's a little disgusting, but it's also the tiniest bit hot, even as the string snaps and then there's spit trailing down Louis' chin. 

"Your turn," he smirks at Harry, feeling inexplicably smug.

"That's alright," he stammers, "Actually I kind of have to... go... find uh... my phone, yeah, sorry," he hurriedly scoots of of the other side of the bed and disappears into the hallway before anyone can question him.

Louis' said it before, Harry's a weird kid. 

***

Of course the next morning Louis wakes up with a pounding headache, that was definitely one the stupidest ideas he's had in a while. Zayn was right, again, though he hopes Zayn hasn't quite realized that fact just yet.

He wants to just lie in bed all day, maybe curl up in a ball and die. He sits up, patting around his pillow, searching for his phone to check the time. He feels a little disoriented, like he's just woken up in a strange room or something, before he realizes that he's not in his own bed, but rather in Harry's. Harry and another, smaller body are curled into Louis' bed, and he's only alarmed for a second before he recognizes Niall, lying almost atop him, hand fisted in the rumpled bed sheets.

He climbs out of bed to get some ibuprofen out of his bag, at least he came prepared, right, and then shake the others awake, Zayn first because he'll probably need to be woken twice.

Zayn just grunts and covers his face, a normal response, for him at least, so Louis' not sure if he's hungover or just being a prat. To be honest, he's hoping for the former, he deserves it.

"Hey," Niall's voice sounds sleepy and muffled.

"Hey, 'mornin," he walks over to Niall's (actually his) bedside, "How's he?" he nods toward Harry.

Niall uses the hand that is not currently being crushed beneath Harry's unconscious body to poke him in the cheek, right where his dimple would be of he was smiling.

"Hazza," he sing-songs, "Hazza, it's time to get up," he pinches his cheek, Harry is unresponsive.

Niall smacks a giant kiss right on the spot he had poked seconds before. Harry doesn't even stir.

"Do you think he's dead?" Louis questions.

"Nah, he just gets like this. Hazza," he says again, a bit more urgently this time. "Get up," he coos, reaching down under the covers to tickle at Harry's sides.

Either Niall just has absolutely no boundaries, or he and Harry definitely have a thing.

Harry begins to move, and Niall appears to take this as further invitation to feel him up. He throws off the covers and sits up to loom over Harry as he begins smacking sloppy, wet-sounding smooches all over Harry's face, while continuing to pinch at him anywhere he can get a hold. The whole is a little bit sickening, sort if sweet, in complete honesty, but not, because Harry isn't Niall's, or, he realizes with a lurch, maybe he is (he should really ask about that).

Harry groans and rolls over, wiping his face with the pillow so his voice is muffled when he says, "Niall I hate you," 

"Love you too, Harry," Niall finishes, ruffling his hair, "Now get up," and then promptly gives Harry a shove that leaves him sprawled on the floor, directly at Louis feet.

"Oops," Harry says, looking up at him.

Louis smiles at the ground, "Hey _Hazza_ , sleep well? Feeling okay?" he is prepared to spread the wealth (non-prescription drugs) if need be.

Harry makes an affirmative sound (at least that's how he takes it), "Feel alright, didn't drink too much," he adds under his breath after a short pause, "unlike _some_ people."

"Harry, I haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about."

"Oh really?" Harry raises and eyebrow. Harry has nice eyebrows, "How much do you remember from last night, then?"

"I remember everything," Louis states proudly, "in vivid detail." This is a complete lie, he has very little recollection of what went on last night, mostly dancing, he reckons.

"I'm sure you do," Harry says flatly, "What was it, that game that we played last night?"

Shit. He takes a wild guess, "Tag?"

Harry stares at him for several seconds, "I don't know how a game of tag would have given you an excuse to snog Niall."

He didn't. His eyes shoot to Niall, who simply shrugs sympathetically at him as he tugs on a pair of pants.

"Oh," he says at a loss for words, trying to think back, and _oh_ , he sure did kiss Niall, more like tried to devour his face, _god, how embarassing_ , "Sorry mate," he says, not sure if he should be directing this towards Niall or Harry.

"'S okay, it happens. I've had about a million drunken snogs with Harry, even Liam once or twice, no big deal,"

Louis bets he's had more snogs with Harry than just those, and would feel bad for kissing his boyfriend, but like Niall said, it was nothing, purely platonic.

"So, remember kissing anyone else?" Harry jokes, but his eyes look a little too serious and it's a little weird, but it's also Harry, so it's not too weird.

"Nope, sorry to disappoint, think it was just Niall," Harry really does look a bit disappointed, huh.

"Don't look so upset about it, maybe I'll kiss Liam next time," he says with a wink, and oh, well, if he was pouting before, then Louis doesn't even know what to call this, "or not."

Harry gets out of bed then, a little huffily, grabs a tank-top and shorts from the dresser at the foot of his bed, and goes to change in the bathroom. Maybe he was secretly seeing Liam behind Niall's back and he didn't want Louis kissing both of his boys. Or _maybe_ , he was in love with Liam and was just using Niall, _or_ he wanted Liam for Niall and couldn't have Louis in the way. _Wait, maybe_ Harry was just trying to protect his friends from him because he thought Louis was a player. 

_Shit_ , that's totally it, he'll have to subtly reassure him about it later, and let him know he's not interested in Liam and Niall that way. It shouldn't be too big of an issue, he is, in fact a master of subtlety.

So when they're in line for breakfast, he follows Harry over to the fruit bar, sidles up to him, and whispers, "Hey, Haz, sorry about earlier, I was just joking. I promise I won't try to steal your boyfriend or kiss Liam or anything."

Harry gives him a really weird look, and shakes his head a little, but then he says okay, so Louis thinks it's working.

And then when they sit down with a few of the girls from Harry and Liam's team, he makes sure he's pressed as close to Harry as possible, so he can spend the whole meal telling him things like, "I've only had sex like, two and a half times," (probably a little too much information), and, "I'd consider myself to be _super_ loyal, even better than a golden retriever," (which Harry laughs at a little), and finally, "I am not a player, in case you were wondering," though judging by the confused look on Harry's face, he was not. Mission accomplished. Harry probably thinks he's a bit odd, but he can't think he's a player now. In any case, he no longer seems upset, so Louis counts it as a win.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm serious. TELL ME TO FINISH THIS OR I LITERALLY NEVER WILL!!


End file.
